Chasing a Fallen Star
by Gneurotic-Gnostic
Summary: The daughter of Oldtown solider is summoned to the seat of an ancient house, and given a special mission. One chapter, hopefully more to follow.


Chasing a Fallen Star

The Night Bloomer

The shadows of her dream danced with swords of pale mist. The foes they sparred with were always the same - three weirwood trees, alive with light, weeping blood from white eyes and white swords. _I am one of the shadows_ , she realised. One of seven, swirling round the trees, cutting at its leaves.

One suddenly turned to her. Its long wooden arm held a weirwood sword alive with starlight. It did not move, but she could not stop flying towards it, and with a cut of blinding white, her shadow was extinguished.

Tatiana Flowers awoke to moonlit sky, and the gentle rocking of the boat. _I have never known the old gods, yet I dream of them still._ Everyone in Oldtown who wasn't a Maester was a Septon, and she was raised in a world steeped with the Seven, yet all the same she did not believe in gods and demons. A god imaginative enough to create the world could not be the same one who bored her throughout _The Seven Pointed Star._

With some effort, the young woman raised herself from her sleeping position sat against the mast of the _Mongrel Pup_. It was a strange ship that had come to collect her from the port - maybe once it had been a Swan Ship from the Summer Isles, but as time and trade went on it has picked up parts from Iron Born longships and Tyroshi traders, until it had earned its name.

To stretch the cramp from her neck, Tatiana looked up, and saw the stars in the Dornish sky. _I know none of their names_. The thought saddened her; as a bastard of a Captain of the City Watch, her father often would take up on the high walls of Oldtown. But there the light of the Hightower would drown out the sky's gentle glow, leaving the night as bright as day, and leaving the city below her to twinkle instead. _I am used to looking down to see the stars, not up_.

Over the edge of the Pup's deck, she looked down on the calm waters of the Torrentine river, gently rippling as they sailed through. When they left the Summer Sea and became flanked by Dornish hills, she could not say, but she knew where she was headed.

Tatiana recalled how she came to be aboard the Pup. A woman of just one-and-twenty would not ordinarily walk the docks alone, lest they be treated as a whore, but Tatiana was not ordinary; with garb of boiled leather and a dagger on her hip for all to see, even the hardest of sailors made room for her.

"You," a voice behind her had spoken, high and horse. "You there." She turned to see a sallow youth, some Dornish boy, sandy blonde hair already turning dark as the weather cooled. "You are the Bastard of the Oldtown Watch?"

The name made her flinch. _Not the whole Watch, you vile boy. I am not some mongrel._ "I have not served in the Watch for nearly a year."

"Then you are in need of coin?" the short, skinny lad moved closer to her. "How would you like to earn some?"

"How?" she kept her tone flat, but her incredulity obvious.

"A quest. To find something."

"Find what?"

The boy grinned, wolfishly, his teeth glinting beneath brown lips. "A fallen star."

And so, she had gone with him. She had nothing left to lose. Tatiana no longer belonged in the Watch, not since her father died, and she had yet to find something better, not even a company of sellswords to ride with. At times she fantasised about captaining her own company, fighting in the Disputed Lands, an army of men at her back even fiercer and of greater repute than the Golden Company. _It is not a noble dream, Tatiana. Your life should be more than that._

On the journey, she'd learnt the boy's name to the Sym Sand, a bastard himself, though he was keen to point out how everyone called him _Spider_. Incredibly, he sailed the Pup entirely by himself, climbing the sails and disappearing below in a fluid movement of spindly arms. She dared not distract him, lest the boy manage to run them aground.

She left her memories behind her, and returned her focus to the horizon. _It is beautiful here._ Perhaps Tatiana could stay here instead, ask to join the Castle's household guard, even become a sworn sword to Lady Tynia's beloved son, and live out her days with the breeze on her faces and the stars in her eyes. _You must find the fallen star, first._ No doubt that meant the Lady Tynia's heir, whose whereabouts was of much interest to the gossips and rumour-mongers. She might fail, and the young lord might already be dead, but she saw no reason not to try.

Suddenly, something appeared in Tatiana's line of view, just touching the starry sky - a white tower, prodding into the infinite blackness, so stark and bright it might have been a slice of daytime. _The Palestone Sword_. The Pup had reached its destination: the Castle Starfall, seat of House Dayne of the Torrentine, ancestral home of the Sword of the Morning.

As time went on more of the castle revealed itself to Tatiana and Spider. It was a small but splendid white palace, decorated with marble stars on fantastic arches, and great drapes of haunting violet, holding the sword-and-star sigil of House Dayne.

 _I am a bastard, and a hard one at that. I do not belong here._

Starfall sat on an island of pale grass, descending towards the water of the river, and there at a small wooden pier was where the Pup came to its final halt.

Tatiana vaulted from the low deck and landed - surprising softly - on the grass below. To her surprise, Spider did not follow her.

"Are you not coming?" she called up.

"I sleep on my Pup," he replied, leaning on the prow. "I shall see you in the morning, besides."

"But what about my things?"

"Feel free to come and get them," he said again, puling that irritating, wolfish grin, before disappearing, probably to below the deck.

She considered for a moment clambering back up and instilling some discipline in the skinny wretch, as her father had done with her, but instead, she turned around, and began to slowly move towards the castle, taking in the starlit surroundings.

She seemed to lose time in the moonlight. Tatiana's mind wandered back to her dreams of shadows and weirdwoods, how she didn't feel part of the wraith, but trapped inside. She wondered if her body was a shadow, too, that she was simply trapped within. _If you can just break free. Reach for the moonlight. If you can just break free..._

"The light here is amazing, isn't it?" said a voice from beside her. It was female, and tinted with accent. "It's like you can see forever."

Tatiana turned with a start, shaken from her trance. The speaker was a silhouette, walking towards her, a black void against the castle. She seemed to have emerged from the red tent, some feet behind her.

"Ye-, yes..." Tatiana finally managed to splutter. As the silhouette got closer, she realised she was not black, but in fact red. This woman wore a hooded cloak of deep crimson, lined with a fiery orange, clinging unnaturally to a short and petite frame. Her hood was up, and beneath it was a heart-shaped face with copper skin and almond-shaped eyes. "Though I imagine it is hard to sleep in."

"Oh, I don't know," at last the women were face to face, and Tatiana could see her irises were scarlet. "I have always been afraid of the dark, myself."

 _She is not of this place_. Tatiana wondered if she should extend a hand, or any kind of greeting, but could not decide on what. Thankfully, this red woman took the initiative.

"Are you the Flower?"

"Yes. Yes, my name is Flowers. How did you know that?"

"I saw you," she said with a sweet smile. "A pup, with a flower in its jaws. I saw it in my nightfire, some moons back."

Tatiana understood - she had heard of nightfires before, some where even lit in Oldtown on occasion. "You're a red priest."

"I am a servant of R'hllor, and of you," she made a small bow. "My name is Ahkara. Of the Ghost Plains."

"I'm Tatiana. Though I suppose you knew that." Ahkara chuckled at that. "What are you doing in Dorne, so far from home?"

"The same as you, I suspect - in search of a fallen star," Ahkara linked her arm with Tatiana's, and pointed her line of sight, just to the north west. "I was sent to the Stormlands, after word reached us of King Stannis' conversation. The Temple I was resting in hoped that I might be able to convert some of the lords of his homeland, though I have had little luck. I was resting in the port of Tarth when Spider came to me, and asked for my help. So I went and thought and slept and asked the Lord for his advice, and then I came to Starfall."

The Red Priestess looked out over the red Dornish mountains, an innocent, almost childlike smile playing on her lips. _What a sweet woman_ , Tatiana thought, fond of her already, recalling how different she was to the harbingers of death and doom all red priests she had encountered thus far were.

"Where are you sleeping?" Ahkara said suddenly, almost making herself jump. "You have no things on you? It might take the castle to find you some chambres, and the morning isn't long upon us."

"I hadn't thought," she confessed.

"Come sleep with me in my tent!" the thought seemed to make the Red Girl beam, and her crimson eyes light like tiny fires. "Then we can see Lady Tynia tomorrow, together. I believe all the others are already here."

"Others?"

"You'll see, soon enough," she took Tatiana's hand in hers, and lead her to the red tent, pitched on the grass, seemingly erected by Ahkara alone.

Inside was warm, but not unpleasantly so. The priestess sat in the middle of the tent, cross-legged and eye's closed, the hole above her head letting moonlight drift onto her cloak, taking on a ruby hue as it did so. _Truly, that may be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen._

Soon enough, Tatiana herself was asleep, dreaming her dream of trees and wraiths and a weeping tower once again.

"My ladies? My ladies?" the voices of men, deep, Dornish accents, roused Tatiana from her sleep. "My ladies, Lady Tynia will see you now."

Two Starfall guards had said this, she realised, as her eyes forced themselves open. They were tall and lean, and dressed in the silver and purple of the house they served. Ahkara herself was up and bouncing and seemingly well rested, as though she had been awake for hours.

"Come now, Tatiana! We have an exciting time ahead of us!"

 _What must they think of me,_ she thought as she rose groggily, rubbing her face with the back of her hand, scratching her scalp. _This is a dreadful sight for a lady to see._ She barely noticed the Dornish sun, still beating like a heart of fire despite the start of winter, and inelegantly made her way across the courtyard with her new companions, taking note only of the cool and welcome shadow once they finally entered the castle.

In time, they came to Great Hall of Starfall. It was a chamber that ran through the very centre of the castle, like a spine, tall and white as bone and so light in colour it was almost as if it went on forever, up and up into the sky itself. Carved out of the roof were star shapes, letting in the light of the sun at hundred different angles, touching the lilac drapes that hung on marble arches, and casting on the floor the stretched images of seven pointed stars. At the end sat a throne, crudely hewn from the rocks outside, sparkling like rust, or even copper - no doubt, that was where the lord was to sit.

 _The Septons can keep Oldtown_ , Tatiana thought as she strode down the centre, Ahkara by her side. _This is where the Gods belong._

By the throne, four others stood, becoming clearer as the two approached. Spider was there, apparently having cleaned himself up, and actually wearing a shirt. By his side, a huge man stood, near on twice his height, and shoulders so wide Ahkara might have been able to lay on them. His face was scarred and storm-beaten, his hair grey and saltly, and his huge hands seemed rough and calloused. The left one rested on a throwing axe - on the blade something was carved. Though it was worn, Tatiana and the Watch of Oldtown had seen enough Iron Born reavers to know it was a kraken.

On the opposite side, a plainly but finely dressed man leaned against a drape. He was pale of skin, but dark of hair and eyes, and wore close grey stubble. On his tunic was sown two crossed keys. He was also sweating profusely in the southern sunshine. _This one is clearly a Northerner._ Beside him, the final person was a curiosity - clearly a Tyroshi, by the way their hair and eyebrows were tainted green, and their loose fitting leather garments were barely more swarthy than their skin, and a pirate's cutlass hung from their belt. But Tatiana could not tell if they were man or woman - their face and stature was small, somewhat feminine, but there was no bust or hips to speak of. Still, it made no difference to her.

At last Tatiana and Ahkara reached the red stone throne, and together the four stood in silence. _Six ragged travellers. Not even enough to make seven, like a poor man's Kingsguard._ That thought stuck with her. _What could Lady Tynia want with us?_

"Thank you all for coming," a woman's voice chimed in time with the opening of a great wooden door, and all turned to see the person they had been waiting for step through into the hall - Lady Tynia Dayne.

 _She plays this game well._ She did not appear Dornish - she might have hailed from a house in the Reach, or the Westerlands, even, but she owned the hall as though it was her birthright. Resplendent in white, she was tall and fair, and though she was approaching fifty with streaks of grey in light brown hair, she remained beautiful. She took a place by the arm of the red stone throne, but did not sit.

"I know it has been a long journey for you. But now you are here, you have the hospitality of Starfall for as long as you wish."

"Thank you, m'lady," said the rough Iron Born man. "Perhaps you could introduce us all?"

"Of course," the Lady said with a light smile. She pointed to the Ironman. "This is Wyrn Weaver, of the Iron Islands. He served in the Iron Fleet for many years, a veteran of the Greyjoy Rebellion. I'm told he killed near on thirty of Stannis Baratheon's men in the battle for Great Wyk."

This Wyrn smiled proudly.

"I'm sure you all know Spider by now, my loyal lad," Lady Dayne continued. She said of the plain man: "This is Dickon Locke, once a fighter in Robb Stark's army, now in my service. He escaped the Red Wedding and rode south to avoid the war. He is an excellent fighter, and loyal." Locke nodded in recognition.

"Our Tyroshi friend is Ghana D'Uhmar. They rode with the Windblown and the Stormcrows before coming to Dorne." Ghana nodded too, but strangely sideways, as though they didn't quite agree with everything said. "This one is mute, I'm afraid. But you will find no one better to defend you."

"Another from Essos, this is Ahkara of the Ghost Plains. A priest of R'hllor of great renown, her wisdom is spoken of on both sides of the narrow sea."

"Thank you, my Lady," Ahkara said with a grin.

"And finally," Lady Tynia turned, a looked directly at Tatiana. "Tatiana Flowers, loyal servant for many years among the City Watch of Oldtown. She grew up among its leadership." Tatiana raised an eyebrow. _She did not mention my bastardy once._ "Again: you are all welcome at Starfall."

"Thank you, Lady Dayne," Tatiana felt compelled to interject. "But I must ask...why are we receiving such hospitality? Why are we here?"

"I told you," Spider piped up. "To find a fallen star."

"You mean, young Lord Edric."

"No," Lady Tynia said. "No, not that."

"So you know where Lord Eric is?" asked Ahkara, apparently sincere in her hopefulness.

"I confess, I do not," the Lady turned to look at the red stone throne. "I worry for my son day and night. He was squire to Beric Dondarrion, you see, and Ned Stark sent the Lightning Lord to bring justice to the Mountain. Now I do not know what fate held for them. But that is not why you are here. It would be fruitless to send you six to Riverrun, to chase after an ever moving band of outlaws. My son will come home or not, you cannot change that. Not by going after him."

"Then what?" asked Dickon Locke. "What is this fallen star?"

Lady Dayne looked back to the six. "You know of House Dayne's ancestral sword, Dawn?"

"Of course," Tatiana replied. "It's given to the Sword of the Morning. Last time, that was Ser Arthur Dayne."

"What's it made from? Valyrian steel?" wondered Wyrn Weaver, hungry to know.

"No," answered Spider. "Something far older."

"The sword was stolen," the Lady of Starfall announced. "A thief all in black came in the night, broke into this very room and pulled Dawn from this chair. They escaped down the Torrentine in a small ship, black again with black sails. But it was impossibly fast. I had Spider pursue them through the Summer Sea, but he lost them at the Brimstone."

 _I understand now._ "And you want us to get it back?"

"House Dayne needs that sword. My son needs it. One day, the whole of Westeros may need it. It must be returned to us."

"You will pay us handsomely for such a mission, I hope?" Locke asked, and Ghana nodded along to his words.

"More gold than you should ever need. I would have you stay at Starfall for all time as my guest, if you do this for me."

"I think this is something we can do, Lady Tynia," said Ahkara. "We can take Spider's ship, and use our talents to follow this thief's trail. But it is important for me to know - why do you truly want this sword, over your own son?"

The Lady looked down, and back to the chair once more. "Dawn is more than a sword. Whoever holds it is the Sword of the Morning. And the morning always comes, no matter how long the night." She looked up, to one of the star shaped holes in the roof of the hall. "I believe my son will one day be the Sword of the Morning. And Dawn is the beacon that shall bring him home to me. I know it. Please, friends. Bring me back my sword. And bring me back my son. You can stay in Starfall as long as you need to prepare."

With silent reverence, each of the six bowed, and began to leave the hall, one by one, Tatiana being last. _There is one more answer I must have._

The young bastard woman stopped, and turned. "My Lady - why us?"

For the first time, Lady Tynia Dayne sat on the red stone throne. She answered honestly.

"No one would miss you."


End file.
